Advertising: Waking Sleeping Beauty.. With Coffee

If you were in any doubt, Sleeping Beauty is definitely gearing up to be the fairy tale du jour (after The Wizard of Oz). We have more books coming out (some Disney, some not, some novels, some art books... I want them all..! Ahem), clothing lines, parodies and advertising. The only thing I'm surprised at is that I haven't seen Sleeping Beauty in Oz... (but talk about potential: poppy field, RED poppies..! But I digress..)

Sleeping Beauty has been used to good effect for advertising a lot in the past, of course, but this new commercial, released a couple of days ago in Australia, is beautifully shot and gives a sense of an ordinary-people fairy tale without overdoing it. (Ok, so maybe everyone is a little TOO good looking, but you know what I mean.)

M&C Saatchi Executive Creative Director Ben Welsh (of Moccona Coffee Australia) said, “It's great to do some good old fashioned story telling, particularly when you can capture the authenticity of character and place like this. Thank you Rena (the marketing director in charge of the campaign). (Source)

The marketing campaign took on some romantic research before going down this path: apparently the simple-but-thoughtful (and unselfish) gestures are waaaay more romantic than flowers, shoes, chocolate or even diamonds... so this commercial sets out to make that point.

A nice touch? The whole commercial was shot in Rome to show Moccona's European heritage, although research helped make that choice too. (You can read about that HERE.)

There's a 30 second and a 45 second TV spot as well as a full 60 second once for theaters. Here's the 45 second one, which I'm choosing over the 1 minute version, since it seems clearer in the storytelling. (You can see the full minute version HERE.)

Take a look:

I concur with this mentality. (Besides, if you try to kiss me while I'm really asleep, you're likely to inadvertently get a black eye. Just FYI.)

Now if only people wouldn't try to talk to me until I'd actually drunk my first cup... ;)